Heather Gray FDN-P – YouTube https://thelymeboss.com/ Episode 89.
Heather Gray interviews Dorothy Leland and her daughter Rachel about Rachel’s
teen battle with Lyme disease. Misdiagnosed for 9 months, Rachel endured physical and mental struggles, including pain, cognitive issues, and depression. A Lyme Literate doctor and a special chiropractor became her turning points, leading to her recovery and current healthy life. Sharing her story through her journal, Rachel offers hope and insight for others facing similar challenges. In this podcast, you will discover:
1:29: Dorothy explains how she got involved with Lyme disease.org after her daughter Rachel became sick.
3:13: Rachel explains how she developed knee pain as a soccer player and then other symptoms that led to her being diagnosed with Lyme disease.
5:07: Migrating pain often associated with Lyme disease and how it can be mistaken for other issues.
5:56: How her mental health deteriorated as her Lyme disease progressed and she dealt with gaslighting from medical professionals.
7:16: How many times Rachel was in a psychiatric facility, Rachel explains her one experience. why it wasn’t helpful.
8:15: How difficult it was to have Rachel in the psychiatric facility and how she sought help from a specialist therapist.
11:08: Heather Gray FND-P compares her own experience of being diagnosed with celiac disease as an adult to Rachel’s struggles with Lyme disease as a teenager.
12:11: How long it took to get a diagnosis and emphasizes the importance of advocating for oneself.
13:25: How doctors sometimes dismiss patients’ concerns about Lyme disease and even blame them for their illness.
17:03: Different treatments she tried to get better, including antibiotics, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and chiropractic care.
21:10: Importance of maintenance care for people with Lyme disease to prevent relapses.
22:45: How her journal inspired her to write a book about her experience.
24:38: How difficult it must have been for Rachel to revisit the dark times in her life while writing the book.
25:22: Dorothy shares her perspective on reading Rachel’s journal and how it revealed some things she didn’t know about her daughter’s experience
31:51: Importance of sharing Rachel’s story and normalizing conversations about mental health challenges and Lyme disease.
32:13: Need to address the rising issue of adolescents struggling with mental health and Lyme disease.
34:32: Being misdiagnosed with Lyme disease due to its supposed non-existence in California.
35:17: Rachel shares a similar experience of being told Lyme disease wasn’t possible in certain locations.
37:23: Criticizes the dismissive attitude towards Lyme disease based on geographical location.
40:09: How the Neural Retraining System (DNRS) helped her manage her health.
41:40: Heather criticizes the reliance on medication and highlights the effectiveness of alternative approaches like breathwork and somatic experiencing.
42:46: Heather shares an example of how managing stress helped her resolve a physical symptom.
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Make sure to use LYMEBOSS15 for 15% off Finding Resilience,
A Teen’s Journey Through Lyme Disease, by Rachel Leland and Dorothy Kupcha Leland
Website: resilientlyrachel.com/book/ Instagram: Rachel Leland (@resilientlyrachel)
Heather Gray FDN-P here: heather@thelymeboss.com
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A story of survival and hope in the face of a debilitating illness
Finding Resilience: A Teen’s Journey Through Lyme Disease Paperback –
October 19, 2023 – Search Videos (bing.com)
When thirteen-year-old Rachel Leland fell in a soccer game, she had no idea that her life was about to change forever. A seemingly simple injury to her wrist led to an outbreak of inexplicable, debilitating pain throughout her body, leaving her bedridden and needing a wheelchair. This set Rachel and her mother, Dorothy, on a quest to find relief from her agonizing symptoms. Refusing to accept the opinions of doctors who either claimed that she was “faking it” or that nothing could be done, Rachel at last found a diagnosis: chronic Lyme disease.
Rachel and her family were forced into a wildly different reality of long-distance doctor appointments, battles with unsupportive school and health-care systems, and daily doses of IV medications. Throughout the ordeal, Rachel’s mental health deteriorated as well, landing the teenager in a psychiatric hospital.
Based on the journal Rachel kept during her years battling Lyme and depression, this raw memoir chronicles Rachel’s journey to becoming the strong, healthy woman she is today. Interspersed with Dorothy’s insights, Finding Resilience is an unflinchingly honest and inspiring account of the struggles and triumphs they experienced together.
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#MisdiagnosisMatters #MentalHealthMatters #TeenStruggles #ResilienceJourney
#ChronicIllnessWarrior #HealthAdvocacy #AlternativeHealing #LymeRecovery
#FromDarknesstoLight #dorothyleland #rachelleland #Lymebook
I was thirteen years old when I wrote my very first journal entry on May 1, 2005.
I was in the seventh grade, and my world had begun crumbling down around me at a terrifying pace.
One day I was an accomplished athlete playing her heart out in a competitive soccer league, and the next I was using a wheelchair to get from one junior high class to another.
Seemingly out of the blue, my body had decided I was the enemy, sending bolts of pain shooting through my neck, back, and legs every minute of the day until I couldn’t even manage walking anymore. The worst part was that no one seemed to have any idea what was going on.
What came next was a long, frightening, and often frustrating search for answers.
As my parents and I went to doctor after doctor without any clear explanation for my rapidly deteriorating health, my fear and anxiety skyrocketed. Wanting to help me cope, my mom suggested I write down all my experiences in a journal. I found an old notebook we had around the house, and hoping to make sense of my overwhelming new feelings,
I began to write.
When I composed those first few entries, I had no idea how important that journal would turn out to be, as a place to record my confusion and the dark emotions that sometimes engulfed me. Writing allowed me to bear witness to myself—a self I felt no one else in the world could even see, let alone understand.
My isolation grew
This feeling of isolation only grew during the years that I grappled with chronic illness. Furthermore, I struggled greatly with the concept of hope. Looking back through adult eyes, I can see that my mounting despair was due, in large part, to the fact that I had no role models for my new way of living. I needed someone to show me that I could survive this experience and go on to lead a joyful, meaningful life.
Unable to imagine any light at the end of this tunnel, I found myself stuck in a deep, dark hole with seemingly no way out. But, while I did not have anybody like me to guide my way, I did have the love and support of family and friends, and this kept me going. They held my hands in that place of darkness, encouraging me to keep traveling the long and winding path that finally brought me out of the abyss—and to better health.
Once I found my way out of that bleak situation, and for many years after, my journal collected dust. It had served its purpose, and now I couldn’t bear to revisit the traumatic events I had detailed so painstakingly all those years before. When I dared to divulge anything about that part of my life to the outside world, it was only through carefully crafted inspirational messages on social media.
And then…a shift
These posts were always truthful, but deep inside I knew that their relentlessly upbeat tone didn’t accurately reflect my lived experience. But then, something unexpected shifted my perspective.
One day, I came across an old photo of me taken when my health had first begun declining. Being confronted with evidence of the difficulty I’d overcome at such a young age brought back a flood of emotions I had been denying for so many years. Suddenly, I felt compelled to share the reality of how disheartened and despondent I’d been as a young teen.
I knew that if this picture could stir up such deep feelings in me, it might do the same for others. For the first time, I felt ready to reveal something authentic about what I’d gone through with chronic illness.
I opened Instagram, selected the picture of me in the wheelchair, and in the caption beneath it, I wrote my truth—just as I had in my journal years before. My experience had been scary, frustrating, and hard. It still was hard. And it pained me to see this photo of a girl who I knew was about to endure so much anguish.
It broke my heart to see her smiling for the camera, unaware of how upside down her life was about to become. But as I weighed whether to share this more in-depth post, I knew that if even one person who saw this picture could feel the sense of connection I had so desperately longed for back then, I felt my discomfort would be worth it. I held my breath and pressed “Share.”
An Instagram moment
The response to that Instagram post floored me! Comments poured in from followers who had no idea that I had ever really struggled. Friends who had only known me in my adult years noted that since I always came off so positive, they assumed I had always been that way, even as a sick teen. One acquaintance I had known for years said she couldn’t picture me ever being depressed.
That day, I resolved to finally talk about what had really happened to me. No more glorified social media highlight reels, just the raw truth from someone who had gone through it all and had finally reached a better place.
Using my journal as a guide, I began to write my story all over again. Yet, as I did, I came to recognize that this wasn’t just my story. The experience of my chronic illness had involved my whole family, and much of the picture was unknown to the girl writing that journal.
My mother’s perspective
Wanting to tell this story as completely as possible, I enlisted my mom, Dorothy, to help fill in the blanks. Throughout this book, she provides insight into everything from finding the right doctors to how helpless a mother feels in the face of her child’s serious health problems.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some 40 percent of school-age children and adolescents have at least one chronic illness. We don’t know how many of them face fear and ambiguity in addition to physical pain as they fight for their experiences to be recognized by family, friends, and the medical establishment.
I was lucky enough to have fierce advocates by my side, but not everyone is so fortunate. Some struggle in isolation, without loving hands to help guide them out. I sincerely hope this memoir can serve as a beacon of light for anyone who needs it. This is the story of my life with Lyme disease. Images (bing.com)
Excerpted from Finding Resilience: A Teen’s Journey Through Lyme Disease, by Rachel Leland and Dorothy Kupcha Leland. (River Grove Books, © 2023.)
RawlsMDhttps://rawlsmd.com/health-articles/lyme-co…
Lyme Coinfection Comparisons Charts: What Your Symptoms …
WebMay 14, 2021 · Lyme Disease in Children: How to Navigate Symptoms, Testing,
and Treatment by Jenny Lelwica Buttaccio Updated 10/6/22 “It was all very scary,”
says Dorothy Leland, recalling the months leading up to her daughter.
RawlsMD https://rawlsmd.com/health-articles/Lyme-disease…
Lyme Disease in Children: How to Navigate Symptoms, …
“It was all very scary,” says Dorothy Leland, recalling the months
leading up to her daughter Rachel Diagnosis.
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNjz7RvfPmY
Parenting Lyme – an interview with Dorothy Leland
Web Dorothy Leland is an author and Lyme Disease activist from California.
Ms. Leland’s Lyme disease journey began when her 15-year-old daughter Rachel began to …
Tick Boot Camp https://tickbootcamp.com/episode-120-lyme-disease…
Episode 120: Parenting Lyme – an interview with Dorothy Leland
Web Nov 14, 2020 · Dorothy Leland is an author and Lyme Disease activist from California. Ms. Leland’s Lyme disease journey began when her 15-year-old daughter Rachel began to….
tickbootcamp.com https://podcast.tickbootcamp.com/episode/214a1184e…
Episode 120: Parenting Lyme – an interview with Dorothy Leland
Web Ms. Leland’s Lyme disease journey began when her 15-year-old
daughter Rachel began to suffer the symptoms of Lyme disease.
LymeDisease.org https://www.lymedisease.org/love-hope-Lyme-podcast…
“Love, Hope, Lyme” podcast features LymeDisease.org’s Dorothy …
Web Her next book, co-authored with her daughter Rachel, Finding Resilience:
A Teen’s Journey Through Lyme Disease will be released on October 24.
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